ronnie_suburban
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Posts posted by ronnie_suburban
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i approve of the beer that was consumed
thank you very much
Mythos at Greek Islands
Negra Modela and Bohemia were purchased for Nuevo Leon
Still approve?
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Edward Don, as mentioned by ronnie, is my favorite. I would also recommend Northwestern Cutlery. They are primarily a cutlery shop but they also have an impressive selection of kitchen supplies and gadgets.
Northwestern Cutlery
810 W. Lake St.,
888-248-4449
Thanks eatchicago. Isn't this the place where many industry professionals in town bring their blades for sharpening?
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Hi All,
We hope that you are enjoying The Alinea Project.
The Alinea Project is intended to provide a rare and uniquely interactive view of the behind-the-scenes elements of opening a restaurant--a restaurant which will push the very definition of what a restaurant is.
A few logistical notes...
For now, only Chef Grant and his team will have the ability to start threads. Once they start a thread, eGullet members will have an opportunity to respond with applicable follow-up questions.
A 'general discussion' thread has been created to accomodate all other discussion of The Alinea Project and its tangents. Some questions presented in this forum will be answered therein, some will be split into topics of their own and some, due to time constraints, may not be addressed at all.
Please, let's keep personal matters, resume requests and commercial offers out of the mix here. While we understand the genuine enthusiasm and sincerity behind such posts, for the benefit of the forum as a whole, they should not be made here. Such matters are best presented directly to the Alinea team. Please use the email link at Alinea's web site for any such inquiries.
Thanks and please, enjoy the ride.
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Tommy's blond?
My worldview is shaken. I have thought all this time that I was reading a brunette's words. (No, seriously, nice to put a face to the name.)
Hey, who in the hell leaves a full bowl of guacamole?
We didn't leave the guacamole, we just didn't eat it there
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and beer.
Hey!!! You said 'ate.'
Here are some (very weak) pics...
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Are any of you going to let us in on what you actually ate?
At Greek Islands...
taramousalata (w/ bread)
grilled octopus
At Nuevo Leon...
home-made corn and flour tortillas
some sort of pork and (pinto?) bean amuse (I kid you not)
guacamole
queso panela (grilled plank of cheese covered in tomatoes and grilled veggies)
queso and chorizo
tacos de carne asada
guisado de puerco
some sort of lengua dish
pollo en mole
one other beef entree.
I'm sure guajolote can fill in the blanks.
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thank you tommy for a great afternoon/evening.
Any details or photos to share?
We started out at the bar at Greek Islands. tommy met us there and Adoxograph followed shortly thereafter. We ate a little bit, drank a quite a bit.
Then, we headed to Nuevo Leon, with a stop beforehand at the infamous "Cerveza Fria" on 18th Street.
We ordered WAY too much food, 5 entrees and 4 appetizers for the 4 of us. It was all fantastic but--dare I say it--doggie bags were requested
After that, being a 'school night,' the party faded into the evening as various 'drop offs' were made.I do have a pic of the 4 of us, taken by the waiter, but I'll have to wait until later to post it.
Thanks again, tommy. It was a pleasure to meet and 'hang out' with you.
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i forgot to give you your pickles
. thanks for reminding me pro()nnie 
.Umm...I was a bit too pickled myself to remember those pickles.
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Here are a couple of places you may want to visit for cookware and food shopping:
Edward Don Restaurant Supply Outlet
2525 N. Elston Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
Phone: (773) 489-7739
The Spice House
1512 N. Wells St
Chicago, IL 60610
Phone: (312) 274-0378
Fox & Obel Food Market
401 E. Illinois St
Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: (312) 410-7301
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Later today, Chef Achatz (chefg, here on eGullet) will be starting a few new topics (here in this forum), pertaining to specific areas of Alinea's development. He will also, as time allows, be available to field our follow-up questions on those topics.
Let's do our best to keep our questions focused on the given topics and have some fun.
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My hat's off to everyone involved with putting this project together!
...on that note, I'd like to mention that eGullet member, yellow truffle, also provided a great deal of assistance with this leg of the project.
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Very cool, Maggie!
I've been to their Archer Avenue location (I believe it's the original) and I see their products, cryovac'd, in 'fringe' markets all over town.
How long has this new location been there?
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Fellow eGullet members,
We have launched an exciting new project with the Alinea team.
We, along with Chef Grant and the Alinea team, will be providing in-depth coverage of Alinea as it progresses toward its opening in early 2005.
For the 'story thus far' and continued discussion of Alinea, please visit the newly-created forum in our Special Features section...
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To read the first installment of our coverage, Alinea: The Story Thus Far, please follow this link...
And for general discussion of The Alinea Project, please follow this link...
The Alinea Project - general discussion thread
Thanks,
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For discussion of The Alinea Project, please follow this link...
The Alinea Project - discussion thread
Thanks,
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Fellow members of eGullet, it is with great pleasure that we launch this forum. Here is where we will discuss our continuing coverage of Alinea, as it progresses to its opening in early 2005.
We hope you enjoy the coverage and please...let's discuss
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Sometime this week, at an undisclosed location in the city of Chicago, Chef Grant Achatz begins the next leg of his journey to open his new restaurant, Alinea. Grant will christen the 'food lab' where the menu for Alinea will be developed. eGullet will be trailing Grant and his team throughout the process -- not just in the food lab but through every facet of the launch. Over the next six months, we will follow the Alinea team as they discover, develop, design and execute their plan. We'll document behind-the-scenes communications, forwarded directly to us by the Alinea team. We will be on the scene, bringing regular updates to the eGullet community. And Grant will join us in this special Alinea forum to discuss the process of opening Alinea. eGullet members will have the opportunity to ask Grant, and several other members of the Alinea team, questions about the development of the restaurant.
A Perfect Pairing?
By the time he was 12 years old, Grant Achatz knew that he would someday run his own restaurant. The story of Alinea is the story of Grant's personal development as a chef and a leader. Grant was brought up in a restaurant family. He bypassed a college education in favor of culinary school, after which he ascended rapidly to the position of sous chef for Thomas Keller at The French Laundry in Yountville, California. In 2001, Grant took the helm of Trio in Evanston, Illinois, which had previously turned out such noted chefs as Gale Gand, Rick Tramanto (Tru) and Shawn McClain (Spring, Green Zebra). In 2003 Grant won the James Beard Foundation's "Rising Star Chef" award, and other prestigious awards followed. By 2004, Grant was recognized as one of the most influential and unique voices on the international culinary scene.
In January 2004, Grant met Nick Kokonas, a successful entrepreneur who was so obsessed with haute cuisine that he had traveled the world in search of it. After globe-trekking specifically to eat at such culinary meccas as Alfonso 1890, Taillevent, Arpège, Arzak, and the French Laundry, Nick was in near disbelief when he realized that the "best food in the world was 10 minutes from my house." Nick had not previously consideredbacking a restaurant, even though he has both relatives and friends in the industry. But in Grant, he saw an opportunity to help create something great.
Through Grant's cuisine, a bond formed between the two men. So inspired was Nick by Grant's culinary ideas that he returned to Trio almost monthly. Finally, he challenged two of his friends, one from New York and the other from San Francisco, to fly to Chicago and experience Trio. He wanted to prove definitively to his skeptical, coastal buddies that Trio was the best and most important restaurant in the country, assuring them that "if the meal at Trio isn't the best meal you've ever had, I'll pay for your meals and your flights." Nick won his bet: his friends were blown away.
Later that night, after service, Grant joined Nick and his guests at their table. The men chatted about a variety of topics and in the '14 wines' haze of the late evening, they discussed Blue Trout and Black Truffles: The Peregrinations of an Epicure, Joseph Wechsberg's gastronomic memoir. The next day, Grant emailed Nick to ask again about the title of the book they had discussed. Not only did Nick remind him, but, within a few days, sent Grant a copy of Wechsberg's book. A friendship was born.
Shortly thereafter, Grant sentNick his business plan for Alinea, sending an email after evening service. By the following morning Nick had read it and replied with his own enthusiastic amendments. With a burgeoning friendship already in place, trust developing between the two men and proof they could work together crystallizing before their eyes, it became clear that they would become a team. Says Grant, "I think most people, in a lot of ways, look for themselves in other people in order to match with and I think to a large degree, the reason why we get along so well is that our personalities align very well."
Nick felt the same way. "It's one of those situations where everything just lined up right. I had the interest, I'd started a number of different businesses and I felt like it would be an opportunity to work with someone who I'd get along with very well. I wouldn't want to build a restaurant just to build a restaurant and I doubt I'll ever develop some other restaurant. I think this is the right situation at the right time."
Grant adds, "I think we're both very driven and passionate people. So for me, it was about finding someone I could trust, someone that I knew was going to think like me, be as motivated or more motivated than me. Those things were very, very important--and something I hadn't seen--or something I didn't believe in--that I saw in Nick." Nick continues, "I think a lot people come to a chef with their pre-existing vision of the restaurant they want to build. I didn't even want to build a restaurant before I saw his vision, so it wasn't like I was saying 'I'm building this restaurant and I want you to be my chef' -- it was more like 'I think you should build a restaurant, what can I do to help you build it?'" Grant would have the additional supportive backing he'd need and Nick would have another venture -- and one he solidly believed in -- in which to direct his business acumen.
It's All About The Container
Anyone who's eaten Grant's cuisine at Trio knows that he is intensely concerned with food and the optimal ways to prepare and serve it. His dishes innovate in flavor; they challenge, tease and delight the senses. But Grant is also driven to innovate in service and technique, constantly seeking new vehicles to deliver sensations to the diner. He works closely with a trusted collaborator, Martin Kastner of Crucial Detail in San Diego, CA to create original service pieces for many of his dishes. And as Grant has searched for additional ways to expand the continuity of the dining experience, it has become clear to him that it starts before the diner even gets to the restaurant's front door.
According to Grant, "You can pull it back as far as you want. The experience is going to start before someone even picks up the phone to make a reservation to this restaurant. It's going to be about their perceptions; why are they picking up the phone to make a reservation? What did they see? What did they read? What's leading them up to that point? They call to make a reservation, that's another experience. The drive to get to this neighborhood is another experience. The minute they open their door and take one step out of their car, now they're surrounded by another experience."
Advancing the functional elements of how food is served is an innate part of the cooking process for Grant, who seeks to render the traditional boundaries of dining obsolete. When asked what he will be able to accomplish at Alinea that he couldn't accomplish at Trio, Grant says, "the obvious is to create the container in which we create the experience. I think that's the very exciting thing for me that I've never been able to have a part in." For Grant, a restaurant's physical space represents the ultimate container and the ultimate personal challenge. The result should break new ground in the world of fine dining.
Grant and Nick are intense and competitive. In both their minds, "crafting a complete experience" is the primary focus of Alinea. According to Nick, "the whole idea is to produce an experience where the food lines up with the décor, which lines up with the flow through the restaurant and from the moment you get, literally, to the front door of the place and you walk in, your experience should mirror in some respects--and complement in others--the whole process you're going to go through when you start eating." Grant takes it a step further. "It's about having a central beacon from which everything else emanates and therefore, it's seamless. The whole experience is crafted on one finite point and if everything emanates from that point, then there's no chance that the experience can be interrupted."
The search for Alinea's space further reflects not only their shared philosophy but also their separate intensities. Says Nick, "One of the things we felt really strongly about, and we both came to it, was that we wanted it to be a 'stand alone' building because if you're in something else you can't help but take on some of that identity. And it's really difficult to find the right size building in the right kind of location, with the right kind of construction that was suitable for the identity of Alinea."
Nick and Grant drove down every street within a chosen geographical band, armed with a giant map and a set of green, yellow and red markers. Once they had found a set of acceptable streets, they asked a realtor to show them every space available on them.
"Once we did find the building," says Grant, "whichever space we would have chosen, we would have analyzed and considered each different aspect to provoke a certain emotion, a very controlled emotion depending on how we wanted it arranged. But I also think that we wanted the neighborhood to feel a certain way, the street to feel a certain way. Is it like Michigan Avenue where I have people 4-deep, walking straight down the sidewalk, non-stop, all day and all night or is it more of a tranquil environment outside? All those things were spinning around and once you identify the golden egg, then you have to go find it."
While they would probably never admit it, each innovation, each step they take together in building their venture serves as yet another a opportunity for the Alinea team to challenge the restaurant's competitors. Their attention to all the details provides countless opportunities to distinguish Alinea from other restaurants.
Here the two men can share in the creation, combining their diverse skills and experiences into a unified and shared vision. Alinea will be their baby. They want it to be the best --not just the best food -- but the best everything. They even want the experience of calling for a reservation to be a memorable one.
The Path From Here
In that spirit, the Alinea food lab opens this week. Grant refuses to promote even one of his legendary creations to 'signature dish' status. Instead of populating Alinea's menu with previous favorites from Trio or 'trial' dishes that have been only roughly tested, Grant and his team will take six months to devise, develop and perfect the dishes and delivery modes that will appear on Alinea's opening menu. When the idea of maintaining a kitchen staff for six months before the restaurant's opening was presented to its investors, in spite of the additional expense, "it seemed like a no-brainer" according to Nick. Grant is an equity partner--a true chef/owner--in the venture and there is a solid consensus among all the backers about the priority of his vision.
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In addition to being one of today's foremost chefs and culinary innovators, Grant Achatz is a long-time member of eGullet, and a lively, provocative contributor to our discussion forums. Read his March, 2003 eGullet Q&A here.
Photos courtesy Alinea
eGullet member, yellow_truffle, also contributed to this report
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Chicago is quickly accumulating its fair share of young, talented, and progessive chefs. With Grant Achatz, the chef at Moto, and ChefGEB mixed with the old gaurd dining in Chicago is going to be very fun. Any chance that the chef from WD-50 or the Fat Duck could come to the Windy City?
Welcome, Lactic Solar Dust. Chicago hosting the olympics of progressive dining. Let the games begin.
Graham Elliot Bowles - Avenues Restaurant
Grant Achatz - Alinea
Homaro Cantu - Moto
Wylie Dufresne - WD-50
Heston Blumenthal - The Fat Duck
Thanks yellow truffle...very nice of you to take the time
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Chef,
This is very exciting news! Let me join everyone else here in welcoming you to Chicago. So nice to have you with us.
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To confuse matters just a bit, this week's installment of Chicago Magazine's Dish quotes Sohn: "The landlord is currently working on the rehab, but I’m also seeking new locations as well.”
Chicago Magazine's Dish
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Thanks for the report Pugman. The menu sounds delicious. It's not going to be surprising to anyone if Henry continues to enjoy success--he's had quite a bit of it over the years.
I'm very much looking forward to trying out Trio Atelier. Do you know when it officially opens?
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August 18, 2004...
From today's Chicago Tribune - Good Eating section:
Mighty bites...Heather Shouse files this report on the "small plate" trend which seems to finally be catching on in some Chicago eateries.
A fond farewell to Julia...rememberances, by Robin Mather Jenkins.
A dogged effort...Bill Daley files this report on the seemingly futile task of pairing wine with hot dogs. Alpana Singh is quoted in the piece as well.
Enoteca Piattini...Carol Mighton Haddix files a Cheap Eats review of this DePaul area eatery.
A culinary 'department store' opens its doors...Barbara Revsine reports on 25,000 square foot, The Market at The Glen in Glenview's new development.
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From today's Chicago Sun Times - Food section:
Chefs who make house calls...Kim Conte reports on in-home cooking lessons and the local chefs who are now providing them.
Annual cooking school guide...last week the Tribune published theirs, this week it the Sun-Times' turn. Denise I. O'Neal files.
Food news...information about breakfast at Heaven on 7, a chile picante festival at Mas and an Olympic tribute at Artists Cafe.
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And, in this week's installment of Chicago Magazine's Dish...Penny Pollack and Jeff Ruby deliver some doubly depressing news. One Sixtyblue will be closing its doors on October 23 and reopening, on November 10, as Michael Jordan's Steak House.
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Media Digest Notes...
Updates from some Chicago media outlets, which do not 'go to press' on Wednesday mornings, will be edited into each week's post as they become available.
For discussion of any stories which are linked here, please feel free to start a new thread or contact the forum host who will be happy to do it for you.
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In spite of whyknow's failure to return here, I believe the name of this joint is The Market at The Glen.
Here is a link to a story about it in today's Chicago Tribune...
A culinary 'department store' opens its doors
A stroll through the 25,300 square-foot-store bolsters the claim. Included in the mix are prepared foods, dry-aged beef and fresh fish, gourmet grocery items and imported gelato, Euro-style baked goods; 410 different wines; tableware; 30 types of coffee beans, more than 80 varieties of tea and more than 300 varieties of imported and domestic cheeses.=R=
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Looks like Hot Doug's will re-open around Labor Day.
Here's a quote from today's Chicago Tribune...
Doug Sohn would choose a pinot noir to go with what he calls the "ba-sic dog." He is owner of Hot Doug's, a BYOB Chicago gourmet wienerie that was shuttered by fire three months ago and is slated to reopen Labor Day.A dogged effort (scroll down a bit for the Hot Doug's info).
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Digest: Chicago Food Media Round-Up
in The Heartland: Dining
Posted
August 25, 2004...
From today's Chicago Tribune - Good Eating section:
Make it stop!...Emily Nunn reports on the never-ending stream of silly 'food' holidays.
A match made in Thai heaven...Robin Mather Jenkins reviews Quick & Easy Thai by Nancie McDermott.
Judging a wine by its label...Bill Daley explores the detailed process of creating a wine's label.
Trying too hard...Robin Mather Jenkins reviews The Dish on Eating Healthy and Being Fabulous! by dietitians Carolyn O'Neil and Densie Webb.
Go west, young Sam's...Sam Hofstetter reports on Sam's newly-opened 2nd location in Downers Grove.
Field's gets cooking...Renee Enna reports that Field's will open Culinary Studios at 5 more of its stores.
Practice makes perfect...Jeff Boda reports on some ways to expand our beer-tasting palates.
Just peachy...Annette Gooch demystifies the chemistry of homemade ice cream.
Julia's legacy...letters of rememberance.
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From today's Chicago Sun Times - Food section:
Toasting Julia...Sandy Thorn Clark reports on local chefs' reactions to the death of Julia Child.
Food News...Denise I. O'Neal reports on Fogo de Chao's 25th Anniversary and special events coming up at Greek Islands and Italian Village.
Outdoor dining as good as it gets...a review of Nicole Basset's Chef in Your Backpack: Gourmet Cooking in the Great Outdoors by Barbara Albright.
Tastings around town...Celeste Busk reports on upcoming events at Deli Meyer, The Wine Discount Center and One Sixtyblue.
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From today's Daily Herald - Food section:
Cooking classes...a comprehensive listing of upcoming cooking classes, tastings and culinary events around town, broken out by day.
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And, in this week's installment of Chicago Magazine's Dish...Penny Pollack and Jeff Ruby deliver the scoop on the continuing travels of Kelly Courtney, former chef-partner at Mod.
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Media Digest Notes...
Updates from some Chicago media outlets, which do not 'go to press' on Wednesday mornings, will be edited into each week's post as they become available.
For discussion of any stories which are linked here, please feel free to start a new thread or contact the forum host who will be happy to do it for you.